Electronic commerce between businesses has gained substantial momentum. Electronic marketplaces and XML or similar documents have begun to replace traditional EDI formats for commerce-related documents. Still, many businesses, particularly small and medium sized businesses, have not adopted automated EDI or XML transaction processing. It remains easier for large trading partners to generate XML or similar documents than it is for small to medium sized businesses to adopt the technology needed to processing them. In addition, a full scale conversion to EDI or XML transaction processing may involve far more documents than a small to medium sized business can practically convert, either within a workable timeframe or a reasonable budget.
Therefore, it is desirable to introduce methods and devices that allow users to read and understand XML and similar documents generated by their trading partners without extensive programming. It is also desirable to introduce methods and devices that are extensible, that can display in a meaningful format field types that are not referenced in output formats.